A building safety expert testified Thursday that two rear exits at the E2 nightclub were poorly marked and situated at the end of narrow, cluttered pathways, making it difficult for patrons to find them. 

Tage Carlson, a mechanical engineer with Packer Engineering in Naperville, examined the now-shuttered nightclub three months after the stampede that killed 21 people on Feb. 17, 2003.

Signs pointing to rear exits were difficult to see from the main stage and unclear in their directions, he said.

"You had to explore the hallway further to find the exit," Carlson said. 

E2 owner Calvin Hollins Jr., his son Calvin "Nicky" Hollins III, the floor manager at E2, and Marco Flores, a party promoter, are on trial for 21 counts of involuntary manslaughter. Prosecutors say the men acted with reckless disregard for the safety of the occupants of the nightclub at 2347 S. Michigan Ave.

The tragedy started when a  melee broke out  after a security guard sprayed Mace to subdue rowdy partiers who had gotten into a fight. Others mistook the Mace for a terrorist attack and fled down the front stairs to the main exit, witnesses said.  They collided with a rush of people coming into the club, resulting in a suffocating mass of bodies piled at the base of the stairwell.

The stairwell to one of the rear exits, Carlson said, was cluttered with debris and another was made very narrow by 4x4 wood parts used for stacking unused tables and chairs.  The door to the restaurant's kitchen, according to Carlson, swung inward into one of the exit pathways and was not marked with any sign letting people know it was not an exit.

In his examination, Carlson noted that both rear exits had crash bars for easier evacuation but that they both also had cross-bolt locks and roll screens that, if engaged, would prevent egress. Some witnesses have said the doors were locked the night of the stampede.

"Those locks shouldn't be there," he said. As for the roll-screens, he added: "You better hope nobody locked it. Or you don't have an exit door."

One of those exits led into an enclosed parking lot surrounded by a chain-link fence, making it difficult for a mob of people to quickly disperse, said Carlson, who has a Ph.D in mechanical engineering from the University of Massachussetts..

Carlson said the club's "exit capacity" was 240 people, roughly a quarter of the estimated 1,150 people there, echoing testimony by fire safety engineer Edward Prendergast on Wednesday.

Carlson testified that, when reviewing police interviews with club employees, he did not note any mention "of an initiation or knowledge of an evacuation plan."

"There need to be trained people in place to help evacuate in an emergency," Carlson said. "The exit capacity and condition of the exits and the lack of a real emergency exit plan set for an extremely dangerous condition."

On cross-examination, defense attorney Todd Pugh asked Carlson if he felt training from the Chicago Police Department or Chicago Fire Department was sufficient for such a task.

Carlson said he did. Pugh then mentioned three different E2 staff members -- among them the head of its security -- who were current or former members of the Chicago police and fire departments. 

Carlson replied, however, that crowd control training by itself was not enough. A specific plan needed to be in place for this specific building.

"It'd be like putting six cooks in a room who all know the same recipe -- but without the recipe," he said.

Pugh then asked the witness to point out all the exits in the courtroom. Did municipal building codes require all doors in a public building to be unlocked while that building was open, he asked.

"Yes," Carlson said.

Pugh walked over to the side exit in front of the court gallery. He gently pushed it. It did not budge.

Other defense attorneys pressed the impossibility of predicting such an event and stressed that no one had died at either of the rear doors.

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